Drives: 2014 Mercedes-Benz CLA250

Behold the baby budget Benz! Just avoid the silly seat stripes.

Thirty years ago, car designers rediscovered the curve and realized that the word drag could exist without being immediately followed by race. Mercedes chased younger buyers with the ultra-aerodynamic 190E. This year, the company is again reaching downmarket with an aero-focused sedan. In Europe, the CLA's drag coefficient can be as low as 0.23—a claimed production-car world best—but the CLA250 coming to America makes do with a rather ordinary 0.29. Blame corporate product planning.

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The key difference between the 190E and the CLA, however, is mechanical: The new car is front-wheel drive. The configuration isn't new ground for the brand in Europe, where the front-drive A-class has been on sale since 1997, but the CLA is the first Mercedes sold here to be so equipped.

America doesn't get (and won't soon see) the latest A-class, but that car's sleek CLA variant is ample compensation. Catch a glimpse of one gliding by, and you might mistake it for a CLS, the $72,000 four-door "coupe" spun from Mercedes's E-class sedan. But the CLA costs just $30,825, making it over $5000 less than the most modest C-class, the cheapest Benz currently sold here.

Despite that price advantage, Mercedes claims to not be worried about cannibalizing sales of the C-class, which will grow noticeably in length in its next incarnation. Having tried the CLA's back seat, the claim is understandable. Rear headroom is so tight that the only way to see out the window is to adopt an airline brace position. Even so, kids fit fine, legroom is bearable, and the trunk is comparable to that of the C-class. Cabin quality is also excellent, with soft-touch plastics, tactile rotary controls, and low wind noise, the latter suggesting Mercedes got its aero sums right.

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If cutting weight has become a carmaker obsession over the past few years, aerodynamics looks to be the next buzz. The underfloor of the CLA is covered in plastic cladding, fairing the center tunnel and suspension. Even the muffler is designed with external—not just internal—airflow in mind.

"Every 0.04 we shave off the drag-coefficient factor gives us an economy advantage equivalent to reducing weight by 88 pounds," says the CLA's program director, Hans-Georg Engel. "To accomplish that sort of weight saving would mean using different [read: expensive] materials."

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A 4Matic all-wheel-drive version of the CLA lands next spring, around six months after the front-drive model, and will likely cost around $2000 extra. Like the Volkswagen Golf R's Haldex system, 4Matic can in theory deliver nearly 100 percent of available torque to the rear axle. But in the real world, 4Matic CLAs are front-drivers until the wheels slip, which they almost never do. Torque steer is virtually nonexistent on the two-wheel-drive car, and a pseudo-torque-vectoring function brakes the front wheels individually to help the car pivot into corners.

Both two- and four-wheel-drive CLAs handle neatly, with a good blend of ride and body control at high speed on the lone (passive) sport-suspension setup. It's not perfect; at low speed, urban ruts produce an audible thump that echoes through the cabin with the subtlety of a judge pounding a gavel in a rowdy courtroom. Europeans can choose a comfort-oriented suspension option, but it's not making the trip across the Atlantic.

The sole engine is a 2.0-liter turbo four developing 208 hp and 258 lb-ft of torque. It's mated to a mandatory seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox. Zero to 62 mph in 6.7 seconds puts the CLA around half a second quicker than the turbocharged 1.8-liter C250, but the gearbox struggles and second-guesses your needs when asked to deliver all of that performance on a twisty road. The noise, or rather its quality, is the other negative. The CLA might look like 70 grand, but it certainly doesn't sound like it, pumping out a plain four-cylinder bark when every other sensation on the car prepares you for a silky six.

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The CLA's transverse engine layout means that even the CLA45 AMG, due in November for around $50,000, sticks with a four-banger. AMG R&D boss Tobias Moers promises a suitable growl from the CLA45's 360-hp 2.0-liter, together with better steering feel from a fixed-ratio, electrically assisted rack. It sounds like a strong package, but it strays from the core appeal of the CLA as the cheapest way into a new Benz. Mercedes expects most CLA250 buyers to add the Premium package (Harman/Kardon sound, dual-zone automatic climate control, heated seats), a panoramic sunroof, and little else, which will keep the price below $35,000. At that level, with those looks and quality to match a full-sized Merc, who's going to care if there's a humble European hatchback hiding underneath?